Foundation Licenses ARS-Developed Tick
Control Device

A patented device developed by
Agricultural Research Service scientists
to protect white-tailed deer from blacklegged ticks is now being sold
commercially.

The American Lyme Disease
Foundation, Somers, N.Y., has been licensed to produce the device, called
the "4-Poster" Deer Treatment Bait Station, developed by ARS scientists in
Kerrville, Texas. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific
research agency.

The device was studied for five years, to see if it would
control ticks plaguing white-tailed deer in the Northeast. Blacklegged ticks,
Ixodes scapularis, and the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum,
transmit the bacterial agent, Borrelia burgdorferi, that causes human
Lyme disease. Each year, more than 10,000 human cases of Lyme disease are
reported in the United States, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.

The simple device consists of a bin that's filled with
whole-kernel corn. Paint rollers on the four corners of the bin are loaded with
a special formulation of permethrin that Y-Tex Corporation, in Cody, Wyo.,
registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency for exclusive application to deer by the "4-poster." As a deer feeds
on the corn in the bin, the animal's head and neck rub against the
permethrin-laden rollers, which gives sufficient coverage to protect the entire
animal.

The 4-poster device offers a viable tick-control alternative to
spraying insecticides into the environment that might be toxic to nontarget
species. Studies by ARS and cooperators have shown that after two to three
years, use of the 4-poster technology will control from 92 to 98 percent of the
free-living tick population around the devices. Depending on the size of the
herd, each device will treat deer on approximately 40 to 50 acres.

Lyme disease occurs mainly in suburban areas where there's an
overabundance of deer. The test sites for the device were in areas where some
of the highest incidences of Lyme disease in the United States were found when
the project started in 1997.